Can you be friends with people, whose
record collection mainly consists in Tina Turner albumes? Can you love a
woman, whose favorite band the Simple Minds is? With such questions the
hero of Nick Nornby’s bestseller „High Fidelity“ is busy, and they
are all a slice of life. Guenter Krueger from Berlin-Marienfelde has
many friends and has also been married for 31 years, very happily, as he
assures us. And he owes 3,736 sound storage mediums (1,600 records among
them) of James Last.

Krueger’s hero is that man, that in 1950
as Hans Last was the best Jazz Bassist in Germany and has been serving the
Germans with fun since the middle 60‘s as a Big Band Leader. Besides, in
these days the 73 year old rised to the position of Germany’s most
successful music export with his mix of Classic, Swing and Pop: He sold
more than 80 million sound storage mediums worldwide.

Recently the man, who was born in
Bremen and is meanwhile living in Florida did his first tour throughout
China, and Guenter Krueger would have been going with him. But this trip
was too expensive for the 58 year old, who was knighted as a fan when Last
invited him for his 60th birthday.

The service technician for industrial
scales followed his music hero to concerts for several times. Among other
things he followed him to a concert at the „Palace of the Republic“ in
the Eastern part of Berlin in 1987, but usually he refrains from James
Last concerts in other countries. Instead of that he uses all his energy
and a lot of money for the completion of his collection. Even his holidays
were often adjusted to the countries he needed some records from.

On the hard fan trip Guenter Krueger came
in 1982, when he saw the orchestra at the Berlin „Waldbuehne“ for the
first time ever. Since that time he was spending thousands and thousands
of Deutsch Marks on his hobby. And as an excessive collector he sometimes
bought up to 20 different versions of an albume just because of the
different covers. „Everything he ever published, no matter if as Hans or
James Last, I got“, Guenter Krueger says. Why does the music hold such a
great fascination for him? „Ask me something easier“. Anyway, he can
listen to this music for hours. „It doesn’t get on my nerves, even if
I heard it a hundred times already. Some say it’s elevator music. But I
think it’s just a matter of taste. When I sit on the balcony and hear
the kids‘ „boomboom“ coming from car stereos, then this is not my
kind of things“.

Nevertheless Krueger found many friends on
account of his hobby, and this is because of the internet. Since he
brought his own home page to the net two years ago kindred spirits
contacted him. Also a Chinese James-Last-Fan spotted him and contacted
him. Since that day the two freaks have continously been supplying CD’s
of their idol from to each other. Xu Wei told him that he recently was at
a concert in Bejing with his whole family. He was excited that Last signed
all his 70 CD’s.

At Last’s concert in October at the ICC
in Berlin Krueger surely was the most acritical fan among all others. But
unfortunately he isn’t the most famous fan, because even the Hip Hoppers
of „Fettes Brot“ or Techno DJane „Marusha“ count among his fans.
But this is something, not everybody knows.

SORRY, for my poor english translation, but that's all what I could
remember from school. - It's a long time
since...